All That Glitters
by thecivilunrest
Summary: Because we can't let Luke have all the glory. The life of Silena Beauregard.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_.

**A/N: **This story, it's going to kill me I swear. I've been working on this since May of last year. So basically this story has been TEN MONTHS in the making. TEN MONTHS. I don't know what's wrong with me. But it's just that there aren't enough stories about Silena, which I think is a shame because she's just as interesting as Luke. So this is a Silena centric story because we all can use more Silena, yes?

This was going to be a one-shot, but I realized that it would be ridiculously long, so that's just not going to happen. So this gets more interesting, I promise. And also there are a few OCs but they all have a purpose I swear. And now I'm done. Reviews are appreciated. :)

_All That Glitters_

_Year Nine_

The first time that Silena met her mother she was nine years old and had just gotten done with her third grade play. She had been the toothpaste fairy queen, which really meant that she got to wave a glittery fairy wand over her classmates, who were dancing teeth, and wear a crown made out of toothpaste caps.

Before the performance one of the girls in her class, Janice Joyce, had told her that the only reason that she had gotten the part of toothpaste fairy queen was because she was pretty and dumb and that was what her mother had told her that _all_ actresses were like.

Janice was also tooth decay so Silena didn't really listen to her. She had _loved _being up on the stage though, underneath the heat of the lights. She had loved how the make-up felt against her skin, the way that all eyes had been on her and everyone in the audience had listened to what she said.

She loved the way that everyone had clapped, the way her father whooped for her, the way that she had gotten flowers afterwards. She loved how everyone told her what a great job she had done, the way her teacher had smiled at her and patted her on the back.

Basically Silena _loved_.

Her father met her in the foyer of the auditorium, having already signed her out so that he could take her home. "You did great sweetheart," her father told her, pecking her on the cheek as he took the roses out of her hands. "I really believed that you were a toothpaste fairy queen."

"Thanks daddy," Silena breathed, eyes drooping. It had been a long night for a nine year old that was usually in bed by eight thirty at the very latest.

They were making their way to the car when all of a sudden Silena felt her father stop. She turned around to look at him curiously and he was gazing at something behind her. Slowly Silena turned around and saw what he was looking at.

She was the most beautiful woman that Silena had ever seen in her life, even including all of the woman that she had ever watched on the TV or at the movies. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Silena, and the warm smile on her face outshined the stars that were out by at least a million watts.

The blonde girl literally felt some breath being taken from her.

"Hello Donald," the woman purred, eyes on Silena's father. Even her voice was magnificent, and it wrapped around the two people that she was speaking to like a caress. When she shifted to look at Silena the blonde girl couldn't help but think that she was even more lovely. "Silena. You look absolutely beautiful, darling."

Instinctively Silena felt her hand wrap around her father's. She looked up and found his gaze still locked on the unfamiliar woman in front of them. She couldn't help but wonder how a woman this stunning knew her and her father's name. The woman gave her father a look that clearly told him to get on with it.

Wrenching himself away from the sight in front of him he turned to his daughter. "Silena," he said, shock evident in his voice, "this is your mother."

Silena's heart dropped to her stomach. She couldn't believe it. Really, she couldn't. Her whole life she had wondered about her mother and her father had told her everything.

Her parents had met just as Silena's father's candy story was opening up and they had bonded over chocolate truffles. They fell in love over homemade peanut butter cups. She had left him with nothing but a bag of jelly beans, and then nine months later he had a beautiful baby girl with a chocolate coin taped to her stomach in a golden cradle at his doorstep.

Her father had told her all of this as though it was a fairy tale, as if Silena was the happily ever after part, but he never had told Silena her mother's name. That had always been the one part that he had faltered at and over the years she had stopped asking.

Now she suddenly knew why her father had always stressed that her mother was beautiful.

She had always wondered why her mother could never come visit her, why she could never braid her hair or go to her dance recitals or make her jewelry like her friend's mothers did.

Her father had always told her that her mother was far away and couldn't those things with her. This, along with the fact that it seemed like her mother had no name, had always equated in her mind that her mother was a spy, too busy saving the world and disassembling bombs at Buckingham Palace to come see her.

But her mother didn't _look _like one of those spies in the movies that she watched with her father, not in that tight black dress and the purple shoes that reminded Silena of those people on stilts that you saw at carnivals.

"Hello," Silena said. All of a sudden she didn't feel tired anymore. She was finally meeting her _mother_. Maybe she even saw the play. Silena's heart beat ten times faster just thinking about the possibility. "Did you come watch me?" she asked her mother, whose smile widened.

"Of course I did, and you were absolutely marvelous my dear." Silena's mother looked up at her father. "Can I talk to Silena please Donald? Alone? I promise I'll have her home soon."

With a resigned expression on his face, as though he knew that he would never be able to tell the beautiful woman in front of him no, her father nodded. "Be good sweetheart, and have fun." He squeezed Silena's hand and walked the distance to the car.

"Yes Daddy!" Silena chirped, running toward her mother, who smiled at her once more. Every time she did it the stars seemed to dim a little more.

"You like milkshakes, don't you?" Silena's mother asked and the small girl nodded, knowing that there was no possible way that she could talk right now. She was going to go get a _milkshake_. With her _mother. _There was no possible way that her night could get any better.

When they got into a diner her mother immediately slid into a booth and Silena followed suit, sitting on the opposite side so that she could continue looking at her mother and make sure that this wasn't just a dream.

"Before I start with anything, darling, I just have to know one little thing. Do you know who I am?"

Hardly believing that her mother was within touching distance, and she was _talking to her_ Silena replied, "You're my mother. Right?"

"Yes dear," the woman on the opposite side of the table said with a tinkling laugh, "but I mean do you _know _who I _am_?"

Silena, not quite understand what exactly it was that the woman was asking, shook her head. "Well then. I am Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Now do you know who I am?" Silena shook her head again. "Well you'll learn exactly who I am when you go to camp. But camp is the reason that I'm here, after all. Silena, because you're my daughter you're special."

In distaste Silena's nose wrinkled up. She had never liked that word, especially because it was only usually applied to her right before she had to go to the special reading lady, or when the boys at school were calling her dumb because she couldn't read like everyone else.

"Oh no," Aphrodite said, seeing the look on her daughter's face. "This is a _good _thing, you being different. Haven't you ever seen things, things no one else could see? I'll bet you have dyslexia too, but you don't have ADHD, which is a good thing. All of that is because you're _my _daughter, the daughter of a goddess."

"So am I a goddess too?" Silena couldn't help but ask. In her mind goddesses were beautiful people up in the clouds that got grapes fed to him, not woman that ate in diners and knew her father.

"Only a demigod, a half blood. But take no shame in that, because it's a _good _thing. You're half god and half human and that's extremely rare. And since you're _my _daughter in particular you'might have special powers."

"Like Wonder Woman?" Silena couldn't help but ask, picturing the dark haired superheroine that she had dressed up like once on Halloween.

Aphrodite laughed again. "You're quite charming, aren't you? No, not like Wonder Woman. Believe me, you are no Amazon. They're actually quite awful, no male companionship ever and they absolutely _loathe _me, believe it or not. It's a wonder they've made it this long. So no, not quite like Wonder Woman."

The sound of someone clearing his throat made the blondes at the table look up. It was their waiter, a pimply faced teenage boy who clearly hated the world. When he saw Aphrodite's face, though, it seemed like he thought that perhaps life didn't suck so much after all. Aphrodite's face seemed to brighten even more when under the gaze of a male. "What would you like?" he asked, ignoring Silena all together and staring at Aphrodite.

The goddess looked expectantly at her daughter. "A strawberry shake, please?" Silena didn't even have to look at a menu, she knew exactly what she wanted and she had just simultaneously ordered two of her favorite things, ice cream and pink.

"I'll have the same thing, if you don't mind." The boy certainly didn't seem like he minded anything at all and he nodded as he went off to the kitchen with a pep in his step that probably wasn't there before.

"Then what do you mean by 'powers' if they're not like Wonder Woman's?"

"Well you got some of my love magic, and you'll find out what that means soon enough. Once you're at camp you will learn how to use this power yourself, but for know you can just watch me at work."

Before Silena could ask about this camp that her mother kept talking about the waiter was back in what could most likely be considered a time that a gold medalist would get if waiting tables was an Olympic sport. "Thank you," Aphrodite said, giving the boy a smile that made a goofy grin slide its way across his face and his feet trip over themselves. "There," the goddess whispered as they both walked the waiter walk away, "like that. _That _kind of magic, that kind of power."

"Oh." Silena didn't know if she liked that power. It certainly didn't seem as good as super strength, at any rate, but at least she could do _something_. At least she was part goddess. For once it was a good thing to be special.

"You know, the fates told me that good things would happen for you. That one day you'd be able to tip the scale of a war, and Zeus knows that we haven't had a good one of those in a while. That's part of the reason that I wanted to meet you, you know. That and because I have a feeling that you're going to grow up to be one of my most beautiful daughters, which is quite an accomplishment, let me tell you."

For a moment Silena didn't know what to do or say, but after she had taken a sip of milkshake she simply beamed up at her mother, who beamed back. "Exactly, my dear."

Both of them just sat silently at the table, sipping their milkshakes. Silena was trying to process everything that she had learned, about herself, about her mother, about life in general and her mother was simply letting her eyes roam over all the men in the establishment.

When their glasses were empty Aphrodite stood up and Silena mimicked her. The goddess winked at their waiter as they walked out of the diner. "Don't you have to pay?" Silena had to ask?

Aphrodite looked offended at even the thought. "Oh no, I haven't paid for anything in a millenia. It's amazing what good looks can do."

Silena blinked and when she opened her eyes again she was in front of her father's candy shop and the apartment that was built in top of it. "Be good, darling." Aphrodite said, bending down to give her daughter a hug. Bending herself so that she was eye level with her daughter she said, "The summer session begins on your tenth birthday, can you remember that? Camp starts on your birthday every year. You're going to do wonderful things, I can just feel it."

Before Silena could say anything, before she could ask her mother to stay, Aphrodite was gone, leaving nothing behind other than a strawberry scented breeze and a card with the words _Camp Half Blood _printed in fancy black script at the top.


End file.
